I love the East Coast.

Vestcom’s second annual sales meeting was held in Boston just a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t have been happier about the location.

My family and I lived out east for over 15 years. I have an instinctual bond with the city: the surging energy, the historical pride, the cobblestone streets whose buildings line its edges offering some sort of eatery, shop or retailer (I even bought my iPad there). My blood starts pumping and my brain starts churning in places such as Boston.

I think when you hire people for your company, you want to look for a similar reaction in them. You want people to walk your halls feeling as though they should have been there all along, their professional juices boiling just thinking about the solutions they could impart.

What makes Vestcom successful is not our value proposition; it’s our people. Author Jim Collins highlights this notion in one of my favorite books, his best-seller, “Good to Great”:

“We expected to find that the first step in taking a company from good to great would be to set a new direction, a new vision and strategy for the company, and then to get people committed and aligned behind that new direction.

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.”

When our hiring managers look to fill a position, we start by identifying candidates who possess the technical skills and experience required of our open positions. When we interview, we dig deeper into the makeup of an individual to see how well a candidate will fit into our culture, or “onto our bus.”

My answer to the question “Do you hire for skill or culture fit?” is both. But in my experience, when it comes down to that final hiring decision, culture fit trumps.

Our VP of Marketing, Jeff Weidauer (follow his blog at The Shelf Edge), forwarded me this interview with Don Soderquist, former chief operating officer for Wal-Mart. Soderquist, who now runs The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics, discusses the applications of ethics and values in business leadership. I liked that Soderquist included both “Leadership” and “Ethics” in the title of his organization. One cannot effectively exist (especially long-term) without the other, and the recent news cycle, filled with stories of companies that have failed to exhibit either quality, reflects the truth of this. We’ve dealt with the news of energy companies, Wall Street financial giants, and national mortgage lenders whose ethics have been called into question. These types of stories break far too often.

To me, leadership has to be about having the ability to drive change and create value. It’s the sum of our actions that takes an enterprise to a defined goal, and specifically, to its greatest level of promise. Equally important to the action (the “what we do”) are the values which support it (the “how we do it”).

I live by these core values:

1. Transparency—openness and honesty
2. Integrity—consistency between actions and words
3. Respect—for others
4. Urgency—compelling immediate action
5. Courage—do the right thing … when it would be easier not to
6. Accountability—“own” the outcome
7. Enable—others to contribute and succeed
8. Excellence—in all we do

Some comments on the message board of the above interview mentioned “walking the walk” and not just “talking the talk.” Of course, it’s easy to list one’s values and share them with your fellow associates. Living each value daily requires a far more focused mindset. In future posts, I will cover each of the values mentioned, why I selected them, and share how I hold myself accountable to them. If you have any values you think are missing, and thoughts on how values fit into your leadership role, please share them. I am listening.

The writer highlights the importance of internal communication in recessionary times, and the opportunities technology and the Web afford senior-level managers to “meet” their employees online. Vestcom is 25 years young and has seen fads come and go—we realize that the web isn’t going away anytime soon.

After reading it I couldn’t help but think how timely it was that I’ve decided to start a blog. As the article suggests, social media is the perfect vehicle for tearing down the walls and opening new lines of communication. It’s our belief at Vestcom that internal communication is a key contributor to the success of our company, which is why we take great pride in the job our Associate Relations team does in communicating with our 500-plus associates.

Here are the three goals we have outlined at Vestcom as important to our internal communication plan. We recently shared this with our associates in the May edition of Intercom, our internal newsletter:

1. Keep our associates informed on how we are doing: financial information, progress on our strategic initiatives and other important topics. (Thanks to the hard work of our talented associates, we’ve been able to report resoundingly good news each of the last three years.)
2. Provide a method for feedback and questions. Effective communication means listening as well as talking.
3. Align our internal and external messages. Make sure that we are saying the same things both inside and outside the company.

I’d be curious to hear feedback from managers at other companies on these goals, and from our own associates. Knowing that communication is key to a healthy workplace, are these effective, realistic expectations? What types of internal communication problems has your firm had to address, in light of the recession?

Hi and welcome to my new blog. I’m John Lawlor, Chairman and CEO of Vestcom. You may wonder why I have decided to enter the fray and start this blog. The fact is, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the marketing services industry over the past two decades, but I’m finding that while a number of “new, shiny things” have come and gone, some core principles have always remained the same. I think for all of us to be successful we need to connect to talk about them, and most importantly…. Advance them.

This point is brought home in a book I read recently by A.G. Lafley, Chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, called The Game-Changer. In the book, Lafley highlights the role innovation should play as a core principle driving key business decisions. Lafley notes of the five to seven percent annual sales growth that P&G targets, they look for all but one percent to come from innovation-driven organic growth. That is pretty impressive. And I think he is right on the money.

Recognition

In my experience (and I assume, most of ours), recognizing the need to innovate is only the beginning of the battle. In the face of constant day-to-day challenges and deliverables, it’s too easy, and tempting, to look at last year’s budget to make this year’s numbers. Or, to expect yesterday’s winning product or market to deliver again today. Looking forward and making a thought-out bet on new opportunities that are emerging and new ways to drive efficiencies requires more than just the acknowledgment that innovation drives the real game.

The Art

And even when you are looking forward, the “art” becomes separating the wheat from the chaff. How do you know if what looks like a promising trend will last, or, what looks like a new opportunity is worth investing in? While no one can expect that every well thought-out plan will pay off, investing in innovative ideas as potential drivers for growth is still superior to only betting on what worked in the past. That means it’s critical to find people and partners who have a bead on the trends and forces that will matter.

The Demand

In our industry, powerful trends have demanded innovation. For example, the fragmentation of traditional media that we have witnessed over the past few decades, and the erosion of its ability to reach consumers, has required us to rethink how to market effectively. In retail, in-store marketing has emerged as the preeminent way to get the consumer’s attention at the point of decision, resulting in an estimated $542 billion spend that is now larger than TV, online, print, or any other marketing activity, according to the white paper “Shopper Marketing” by marketer George Wishart. Statistics like that can’t be ignored.

Technology

And then there is advancing technology, which, in my view, will be a “game-changer” for many business models. Social media and mobile phone technologies are radically changing the way people relate to one another and evaluate information. Leveraging these technologies in innovative ways has now become essential to the success and growth of every business.

So where is innovation taking your business? What untapped opportunities do you see on the horizon? I would love to hear from you, and get this conversation really going.

Thanks again for conversing with me on topics relevant to what we are experiencing today as we work to deliver the greatest value to the markets and customers we serve. What are specific topics you’d like to discuss?